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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28937730">Terra Firma</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArtDeco/pseuds/ArtDeco'>ArtDeco</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Halcyon (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Body Dysmorphia, F/M, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Sibling Bonding, The Halcyon Friends &amp; Family February 2021</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 03:35:37</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,700</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28937730</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArtDeco/pseuds/ArtDeco</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>'He takes stock of his body as he dries off, the places that yield, spongy, loose, undisciplined. Perhaps the suit hasn’t been shrunk after all.'</p><p>When Freddie braves the mirror, he sees a man with his best years already behind him. Toby is having none of it.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Freddie Hamilton &amp; Toby Hamilton, Freddie Hamilton/Emma Garland (background), Toby Hamilton/Adil Joshi (background)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Terra Firma</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Thanks to Lucy_Ferrier for organising The Halcyon Friends &amp; Family February 2021 - here's my contribution to Sibling Week!</p><p>Content notes: body dysmorphia, over-exercising and food avoidance.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <hr/><p>Ridged beneath the pads of the fingers; itching; pink-red, like old blisters; but faint, like warning bites, dividing him neatly in half, the rest of him smooth, white, blank like soap. A narrow band of indentations, matching the waistband of his trousers.</p><p>He never looks at the eyes in mirrors. He can check the hair, the eyebrows, the mouth, the chin without ever looking fully into the face. If he looked too often at the face he might lose the nerve to go out at all.</p><p>He scrubs hard in the shower – cold water, hotel toiletries, the sweat of an overheated function room trapped in the underarm hair – but when he gets out and wipes away the condensation and looks again, the ridges are still there, like tyre marks in dirt, sunk into the thin film of fat softening the stomach.</p><p>The suit had been laundered last week. Shrunk, perhaps. Easily done. At RAF College he’d once set the tumble-dryer too high and shrivelled the entire squadron’s shirts. It had been the first time he’d seen a washing machine in real life. He’d felt better when he’d heard that Toby had spent his first month at Oxford washing his clothes by hand in the bath.</p><p>He stands before the mirror until teeth start to chatter. He takes stock of his body as he dries off, the places that yield, spongy, loose, undisciplined. Perhaps the suit hasn’t been shrunk after all.</p><p>He keeps the towel around him as he steps out of the en suite. Ten past midnight. In the corridor, a body thumps against carpet. An explosion of giggles. Shushing. The hotel has switched to energy-saving bulbs, and the bedside lamp flares grey and cool and dim, like headlights through fog.</p><p>He has four texts; he reads Emma’s first.</p><p>
  <em>Hope the dinner went well. I love you in that suit. I’m on the late shift tomorrow so Skype beforehand? 10am your time? Xxx</em>
</p><p>He puts on his pyjamas – though Emma says no-one over twelve and under sixty wears pyjamas anymore, but they hide the creasing, the bulging, the wobbling – and reads the texts from Toby.</p><p>
  <em>Wonder Woman on TV tomorrow, want to come over and watch? You and Adil can bitch about historical inaccuracies together</em>
</p><p>
  <em>19:30 start</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Dw I won’t cook this time, we’ll get Domino’s</em>
</p><p>He takes his running shoes out of the wardrobe, resets the alarm for seven.</p><p>***</p><p>Freddie is a patron and an ambassador and an honorary member and sits on boards and committees and is asked to cut ribbons and give speeches and is invited to dinners and lunches and galas and opening nights where his photograph is taken and printed in the glossy pages of <em>Hello</em> and <em>Tatler</em> and <em>Harper’s Bazaar</em> and occasionally on the website of the <em>Daily Mail</em>. He doesn’t have Instagram or Twitter or Snapchat or TikTok, and his Facebook account is under Freddie Christopher, with fewer than two hundred friends and a profile picture of Wellington the dog. He takes his seat in the House of Lords and lies about his votes depending on who asks him. He is asked back to Cothill House and Eton College to give talks about being a grown-up and to hand out prizes and attend chapel and watch concerts and cricket matches and rugby matches and to make generous donations. He does fun runs and 5ks and 10ks and knows he can’t put off the half-marathon for the British Heart Foundation for much longer. He fundraises for the RAF Benevolent Fund and The Royal British Legion and Help for Heroes, and stands next to veterans in wheelchairs with medalled chests, holding giant cheques, smiling at someone with a smartphone for the newsletter, the website, the social media, the blog. When they caption the pictures, <em>Former Flying Officer, Lord Hamilton</em>, he feels like a fraud. His uniform hangs on the back rail of the wardrobe, in protective plastic, like a costume for a play.</p><p>***</p><p>
  <em>In the doghouse, Adil found cigs in my coat. Free for lunch?</em>
</p><p>
  <em>You can choose</em>
</p><p>
  <em>As long as there are cocktails</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Unless you’re busy social-butterflying</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I can always meet Joe and do some things I’ll regret later</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Wait that sounds wrong now I’ve read it back</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Also Emma says if you don’t text her back you’ll be in the doghouse too</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Let me know about lunch</em>
</p><p>***</p><p>She texts him photos. From the top of the Eiffel Tower, outside the Louvre, the ruins of Notre-Dame, the Seine, the Sacré-Cœur, the staff entrance of the Hôtel Ritz, the food she eats, the clothes she buys, the friends she makes. Followed up with <em>Wish you were here too! </em>and<em> Miss you xxx </em>and<em> Is this where you came with school? </em>and<em> Missing you loads &lt;3 </em>and <em>Love you, Skype later? Xxx </em>and<em> We should try and make this when I’m back </em>and<em> Betsey says I look ridiculous, what do you think? </em>and<em> Ivan says hi! </em>and<em> Why don’t you come out next weekend?</em></p><p>But next weekend he has the sponsored walk for the NSPCC and a meeting about the homeless in Mayfair and Mary Ashworth’s engagement party and Aunt Penelope stopping for lunch on her way to Heathrow.</p><p>Even when she’s pulling faces or trying on novelty hats or has ice-cream around her mouth or her eyes are ringed with fatigue, lipstick flaking, she glows, pale hair like the ripple of foam on sand.</p><p>The first time he’d kissed her, three weeks after the funeral, feeling clumsy in civilian clothes, his body had still been blunt and dense and lean, and he hadn’t pulled in the stomach, tensed the chest when she’d touched him, the warmth of her hands bringing him to bloom.</p><p>***</p><p>
  <em>Adil got a Distinction in his exam so we’re going for dinner on Friday, want to come?</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Joe and Dhani and Tom are coming too</em>
</p><p>
  <em>The Indian round the corner from us</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Dw they do kormas</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Even if it’s just for a quick drink</em>
</p><p>***</p><p>The trees are high and neat and lush, leaves glittering pastel green like lime sherbet, and the sun winks, raising its head coyly, white on grey. There are other runners. Cyclists. Dog-walkers. Litter-pickers. Sketchers. Almost everyone wears headphones. The lake lies dormant, a stale-water smell, ducks in clusters on the bank, heads tucked under wings, like children hiding from school.</p><p>The paths are worn and unforgiving. The face is hot and the hands are cold and sweat slicks the upper lip, the small of the back, the underarms, the hollows of the neck. He’s too far from the hotel to stop; and the other runners would see, and glance at the swell of stomach and think, <em>bless him, at least he’s giving it a go</em>.</p><p>When he eases off his running shoes, the insoles are blotched darkly. His socks are wet. He peels them, like dead skin, and the toes beneath are crusted red with burst blisters. He hobbles on sickled feet, to protect the carpet. In the shower, blood trickles towards the drain, separate, like oil on water.</p><p>***</p><p>
  <em>Saw you on the 10 o’clock news! I told Adil that was definitely the back of your head</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Did William and Kate remember you?</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Let me know when you’re free for a drink or whatever, I’m beginning to forget what you look like</em>
</p><p>***</p><p>In their final year at Cothill House, Toby had shown an unexpected aptitude for cross-country running. His legs, skinny as the tines of a fork, began to thicken and toughen, until young muscle strained his mud-splattered calves. Their mother sent him special new running shoes. The games master entered him for the under thirteens in the National Preparatory Schools’ Cross-Country Championships, and he came twelfth of more than a hundred, the highest placed from Cothill, beaming, pink-cheeked, as he collected his certificate.</p><p>Freddie had been captain of the cricket team, and first choice fly-half on the rugby squad. Toby was the academic one, the swot, the anorak. He wasn’t sporty. He wouldn’t even swim on the family holiday. Freddie won trophies; Toby got A*s. He couldn’t start doing both. He was upsetting the balance of things. And Freddie had watched what happened to whomever came in last.</p><p>When Toby won the fifteen hundred metres on Sports Day, their mother had hugged his sweaty body gingerly and said their father would be very proud when she told him; and Freddie, helpless, had watched Toby beam shyly again, and felt he was looking into the abyss of the new order.</p><p>“Your mum tells me you’re the new Eric Liddell,” Aunt Penelope had said, hands sun-bronzed against the white tablecloth.</p><p>“Eric Liddell was a sprinter,” Toby had said, but had looked so pathetically pleased that Freddie had muttered scornfully,</p><p>“He didn’t even make the top ten.”</p><p>“In my day, cross-country was for boys who were no good at proper sport,” their father had said. “They won’t bother with it at Eton.”</p><p>And Toby’s pink face had gone blank, and relief had knifed through Freddie like adrenaline, so when his father had clapped a shoulder he was sure he would feel the heart racing through the back.</p><p>They had gone up to Eton that September; and as Freddie had broadened, skin drawn tight as though he’d been shrink-wrapped, and other boys’ sisters had started to giggle when he smiled at them on match days, the muscle in Toby’s legs had withered; and Freddie had stayed safe.</p><p>***</p><p>
  <em>Emma’s asking whether your phone’s broken. Are you okay or are you being a prick?</em>
</p><p>***</p><p>“Mum will have a stroke if you turn up in the dining room like that. Mind if I leave my stuff in here?”</p><p>He is already half-out of his coat, lanyard bouncing around his neck as he tosses his battered briefcase onto the bed.</p><p>“I’m starving. I’ve had nothing all day but Polos. Don’t tell Adil, he’ll have my hide.”</p><p>He goes into the en suite, expensive shoes click-click on the tiles. Freddie hears the tap gush.</p><p>“I forget how nice this soap is. Adil just buys whatever’s on offer.”</p><p>There are wet spots on his shirtfront as he comes out, shaking his hands dry.</p><p>“Why aren’t you getting changed?”</p><p>“I’ll eat later. I’m going for a run.”</p><p>“It’s getting dark.”</p><p>“They have lamps in Hyde Park.”</p><p>“Can’t you go in the morning?”</p><p>“I’m going now.”</p><p>Toby tightens his tie in the mirror, hands and neck and jaw slender and sharp and spare.</p><p>“It won’t bring her home quicker. All this sulking.”</p><p>“I’m not sulking!”</p><p>“Then come and have dinner with me and Mum.”</p><p>“You can’t just turn up and expect me to drop everything to listen to you drone on about Adil.”</p><p>Toby smooths his collar. His watch is loose on his bony wrist. He meets Freddie’s eye in the mirror.</p><p>“Next time I’ll book an appointment, m’lord,” he says, and leaves the bedroom door open behind him.</p><p>Toby had been a slamming-doors sort of child. Freddie had marvelled at his courage. He’d felt the urge – tingling in the shoulders, spreading down the arms into shaking hands, chest twisting, wrenching, burning – but he had not been the problem child, and only problem children let feelings get the better of them. Freddie had been proud to be less emotional, more reliable, more mature.</p><p>The gates to Hyde Park are locked. He thinks about walking up to Marble Arch, taking the tube to Hampstead Heath. He doesn’t have his wallet. He jogs back the way he came, up Park Lane, across Grosvenor Square, and leans against the railings of the gardens, high and pointed to keep out the homeless. He shifts his weight to one leg, then the other, to relieve the throbbing in the feet. The railings are cold and hard against the backbone. Whining stomach. He wants to take off his shoes and cool the soles of the feet on the concrete. He doesn’t want to run tonight. But he can’t give in.</p><p>Toby is sat against the door, earphones in, head bobbing gently like a buoy in current.</p><p>“Have you been running all this time?”</p><p>“I thought you’d still be in the bar.”</p><p>“Mum’s gone up. She’s got an early meeting tomorrow.”</p><p>“You could’ve asked Reception to let you in.”</p><p>“Yeah, well, apparently I respect your privacy.”</p><p>Toby gets up, stretches, winces; Freddie hears the hollow clicks of his back. He unlocks his door.</p><p>“How was your run?”</p><p>“Fine.”</p><p>“You look knackered. Are you going to order room service?”</p><p>“To be honest, Toby, I just want a shower and a quiet night.”</p><p>He takes the fresh towel housekeeping have left and puts it on the radiator. Behind him, he hears Toby getting into his coat, unlocking and relocking his briefcase. When he closes the door – the hint of a slam – he stays on Freddie’s side of it.</p><p>“You came to me,” he says, and Freddie hears the briefcase land back on the bed. “After the funeral, <em>you</em> came to <em>me</em> and said you wanted to patch things up. So that was, what, for Emma’s benefit? And now that she’s away, I’m back to being your embarrassment?”</p><p>“Don’t pick a fight. I’m not in the mood.”</p><p>“Dad never had any time for me. I don’t know why I expected different from you.”</p><p>Freddie turns around. Toby is half-in, half-out of his coat. He isn’t sullen and scowling, the forgotten little boy from their childhood, picking at his wounds; he is cool and hard and quite unashamedly deeply upset, in a way that makes Freddie himself feel small and rather young, as though he’s been unkind to a schoolfriend, just because he could, just because it was easier than being nice.</p><p>He says, “You aren’t an embarrassment.”</p><p>Toby is looking at him squarely, and Freddie sees the shades of their mother, magnificent in injury.</p><p>“I am glad we made things up, truly," he tries. "I’m sorry about tonight. Just having an off-day.”</p><p>“It isn’t just about tonight. Something’s been going on ever since Emma went away.”</p><p>Freddie sits on the edge of the bed. The feet have swollen inside his shoes. He can’t let Toby see the blood.</p><p>“Have I upset you?” Toby asks. “Pissed you off?”</p><p>“I’m just missing Emma.”</p><p>“Then why are you ghosting her as well?”</p><p>Freddie snorts. “Has Dhani been teaching you the kids’ lingo?”</p><p>“Don’t say <em>kids’ lingo</em>. It’s like when Mum started using emojis. And don’t change the subject.”</p><p>“I’m not <em>ghosting</em> Emma. I’m just not glued to my phone.”</p><p>Toby slides down the wall opposite him, a healthy stretch of carpet between them.</p><p>“Look, if Adil went away for six months – even if it was a great opportunity and I was proud of him – I’d find it really hard,” he says, legs crossed as though he’s at Sunday school. “And I might feel guilty about that, or a bit pathetic, and I might think I should just grit my teeth and get on with it, even though it would be <em>completely normal</em> to be feeling off, because of how much I love him.”</p><p>Freddie looks down at the unblemished, idle hands, the sharpening curve of the wrists. He shrugs.</p><p>“Are you looking after yourself?”</p><p>“Now <em>you</em> sound like Mum.”</p><p>“Because I meant it, you do look knackered, and not I’m-training-for-a-half-marathon knackered, the I’m-working-myself-into-the-ground knackered. Believe me, I know the look.”</p><p>When Toby’s phone vibrates, he glances down reflexively; but then smiles, types quickly with chewed nails.</p><p>“Sorry.”</p><p>“Work?”</p><p>“Adil. He says hi.”</p><p>“Hi back.”</p><p>“He says the <em>Dunkirk</em> film is still on iPlayer if you haven’t seen it.”</p><p>“Tell him thanks.”</p><p>Toby nods, typing, smile widening. Adil wouldn’t care if Toby’s belly swelled, if it was bitten pink by tightening clothes. Perhaps Emma wouldn’t care either. But she deserves his best.</p><p>“You two should spend more time together. You both love all that war stuff. Now,” Toby says, pocketing his phone, “what are you ordering from room service?”</p><p>“I’ll do it in a bit. Shouldn’t you be getting home to him?”</p><p>“Nice try. He’s at his sister’s. I can stay and irritate you as long as I like.”</p><p>Freddie gets up to draw the curtains. The sky gapes, dark and blank like the back of a throat, the white townhouses gouging at it like expensive, uneven teeth.</p><p>“You should see the comments when Emma posts pictures of you on Instagram,” Toby says. “People <em>drool</em>. Handsome <em>and</em> rich <em>and</em> ripped <em>and</em> heroic.”</p><p>He watches the little figures coming up from the tube, blurred and delicate, like shadows in a painting.</p><p>“You know, even I can admit you’re the better-looking twin. You and Emma are going to have gorgeous babies.”</p><p>He must think him horribly vain. Perhaps he is. He hardly understands it himself anymore.</p><p>Freddie says, “I just want to give her the best of me.”</p><p>He hears Toby getting up, hears the sigh of the bed. Perhaps he, of all people, might understand.</p><p>“I was in the best shape of my life in the RAF. When we got together. And before, at school, with matches and training. You remember how important sport was to Dad.”</p><p>“I remember how important <em>your</em> sport was. But go on.”</p><p>“I thought Dad easily had another twenty, thirty years in him.” He pulls a thread of the curtain. “I thought I’d retire in my forties, Wing Commander, married, children at school. After that, the lord stuff would be easy.”</p><p>“You didn’t have to leave, Freddie.”</p><p>“I had responsibilities.”</p><p>“Mum was being selfish.”</p><p>“Can you blame her?”</p><p>“You’ve always let her under your skin. And Dad. I reckon you were more frightened of him than I was. He was so determined not to screw you up, he ended up doing it anyway. No offence.”</p><p>Toby has tucked his arms behind his head, shoes hanging awkwardly off the bed to protect the duvet cover. His eyes are closed. Freddie can’t remember the last time he was in this room. They meet in restaurants, or at Toby’s flat, or down in the bar, or on trains when they’ve been summoned to the country. Perhaps Toby is right; perhaps, still, there’s an embarrassment, over what Toby is, and what Freddie can’t be.</p><p>“Do you talk to Emma about this?”</p><p>“I don’t want her to think I’m not happy.”</p><p>“But you <em>aren’t</em> happy.”</p><p>“I’m not <em>un</em>happy. Or if I am, I don’t have any right to be.”</p><p>Toby looks at him now, leaning up on an elbow. Freddie looks back at the hands. Shame sits heavy in the throat. He is not alone in the cold, or missing a limb, or a child going hungry. And yet…</p><p>“I feel as though life is moving forward without me. I look at you, with your wonderful job, and Emma with this placement, and Adil doing his Masters, and my old squadron getting promoted – you’re all doing something worthwhile. For me, it’s like the end of the story has come thirty years too early. Like I’ve been left behind. And I can’t do anything about it, not if I don’t want to break Mum’s heart and ruin this place. I just feel a bit – futile.”</p><p>“Freddie – ” Toby sits up properly, expression pinched – “you’ve raised more money for charity than me and Emma and Adil and your old squadron put together. More than Dad <em>ever</em> did. You aren’t futile.”</p><p>“It doesn’t feel like enough.”</p><p>“Enough for who? Why give a monkey’s what anyone else thinks?”</p><p>He says it as though it’s the easiest thing in the world, as though the ghost of their father might at last take its rest if Freddie simply orders it to firmly enough.</p><p>“Adil’s changed you,” he says, and to his surprise, Toby pinkens.</p><p>“For the better, I hope,” he says, a little sharply.</p><p>“Before him, you always worried what people thought. Even though you pretended not to.”</p><p>The shadow of a smile. “Perhaps I’ve grown up.”</p><p><em>And you’re loved</em>, Freddie thinks. <em>You’ve placed yourself in the palm of his hand and you know he won’t crush you</em>.</p><p>“I wish I felt more in control, that’s all.”</p><p>“Then take back some control,” Toby says earnestly. “Start saying no to people. Decide what’s important to you, and have a break from everything else. What they might think doesn’t matter. Start doing things for you – join a cricket team, or a flying club. Hell, buy an aircraft, you’re rich enough. Go and visit Emma. Tell her what you’ve told me. She’s desperate to take care of you if you’ll only let her.”</p><p>“She shouldn’t have to take care of me.”</p><p>“Tough. That’s what relationships are. You look after each other.” Toby flops back on the bed again. “As you once reminded me, you didn’t ask for any of this. You have nothing to punish yourself for.”</p><p>He wishes it <em>felt</em> true; but he feels the press of flesh against his waistband, the weight of himself, too big, too much, too there, eating up space, intruding, the real embarrassment. He wishes he could shrink until he might walk invisible, no mirrors to show him up. A quiet life.</p><p>“You should go out this weekend. Take the Eurostar. Surprise her.”</p><p>“We’re hosting the Ambroses’ ruby wedding.”</p><p>“<em>I</em>’ll stand in for you, if it’s so important. Let them slum it with an Honourable.”</p><p>“You don’t think she’ll mind me just turning up?”</p><p>“Freddie, for someone with such an expensive education, you can be extraordinarily dense.”</p><p>Freddie smiles. Excitement flickers gold in the hollowed stomach. He will thread their fingers, trace the work-roughened palms. He will bring her that hand-cream she likes from Harrods. He will touch lips to her tanned wrists, bee to an orchid, adoring, seeking his courage.</p><p>Once he’s seen Toby out, he finds a cereal bar and the stub of a packet of Polos at the end of his bed. His phone chimes.</p><p>
  <em>This absolutely isn’t the end of your story. Give me a ring whenever. You don’t have to be all stiff upper lip all the time. Eat lots of escargots. You can bring me back some nice cigs as a thank you</em>
</p><p><em>If you like</em>, Freddie types back.<em> But I’m telling Adil.</em></p><p>He has one wearied foot in the shower when it chimes again.</p><p>
  <em>Oh you bastard</em>
</p>
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